---
title: The brushwood closes behind them, as silently as sand into which a m… — Peter Pan · tree and pragmatics
description: The brushwood closes behind them, as silently as sand into which a mole has dived. Who acts: brushwood. A sentence of «Peter Pan» by J. M. Barrie, Chapter XII. THE CHILDREN ARE CARRIED OFF, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Peter Pan, Chapter XII. THE CHILDREN ARE CARRIED OFF, sentence 6

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The brushwood closes behind them, as silently as sand into which a mole has dived.

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**Who acts:** brushwood · **What happens:** close, dive · **To what, where:** mole, sand

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This is a sentence of «Peter Pan» by J. M. Barrie, Chapter XII. THE CHILDREN ARE CARRIED OFF. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (brushwood), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher.** This tree is Mova's own parse (the `en` model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg16:13:6
# text = The brushwood closes behind them, as silently as sand into which a mole has dived.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	brushwood	brushwood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	closes	close	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	behind	behind	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
7	as	as	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
8	silently	silently	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
9	as	as	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	sand	sand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	conj	_	_
11	into	into	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	16	obl	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	mole	mole	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj:pass	_	_
15	has	have	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	dived	dive	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	10	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **close** | present | the brushwood |  |  |  |  | behind scouts *= scout* | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 2 | **dive** | present · perfect · passive |  | a mole |  | sand |  |  | vn meander-47.7 «PP.location V NP»: subject=Theme |

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One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

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**Text:** «Peter Pan» by J. M. Barrie, Project Gutenberg book 16 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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